Today, I’m adding one more game to the list of games that have seen improvements when played on Nintendo Switch 2. Let’s have a look!

Persona 3 Reload

Genre: Turn-Based Monster-Collecting JRPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Persona 3 is a beloved game, but it’s an old one, and up until Reload came along, the version of the game players were playing, even on modern platforms, was just an upscaled version of the 2010 PlayStation Portable game. Given the series’ popularity, it’s little surprise that we saw a remake of the game release in 2024 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, with this remake coming to Nintendo Switch 2 in 2025.

I’ll say now, I’ve noticed others complaining about performance issues on Nintendo Switch 2, and I honestly don’t see this myself. To be fair, the game’s framerate was dropped from the 60FPS to 30FPS here, and that much is definitely noticeable and disappointing, but beyond that I can’t say that I ran into many issues in my time playing the game. Plus, Atlus claims a patch will be released soon to address these issues. Perhaps it has already been released and I didn’t see anything about that, I don’t know. In any case, any complaints I have about graphics aren’t due to any performance issues.

Rather, my complaints are that Persona 3 Reload simply doesn’t seem ambitious enough to justify a full-priced remake, and one with no upgrade path from the Nintendo Switch release of Persona 3 Portable. Now, to be clear, there have absolutely been some major changes here – the in-game 3D characters and environments have all been redesigned to have much more detail, and there are more people bustling around in those environments. When you put this side-by-side Persona 3 Portable on Nintendo Switch, with its somewhat low-poly character models and often barren environments, the difference is striking.

The thing is, when you consider what the Nintendo Switch 2 is capable of, and what other modern platforms that received are capable of, the extent of the remake that Persona 3 Reload offers strikes me as somewhat underwhelming. Honestly, I’m not sure why the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game even needed a framerate cut compared to other versions. In fact, comparing this release to Persona 3 Portable, you have the unusual situation where a Nintendo Switch 2 version of a game actually has worse loading times than the version on the original Nintendo Switch. Again, to be fair, the loading times here aren’t terrible, and the added graphical improvements help to justify the increase, but it’s still disappointing to see this sort of compromise when the tradeoff isn’t exactly mind-blowing.

There are other presentation changes as well. The menu design has gotten a slick update, and the soundtrack has been updated as well, with some new songs, and re-recorded versions of old ones. The voice acting cast has also changed with entirely new recordings, something that may get a mixed response for those who preferred the old voices.

The mixed bag continues with the features list. On the one hand, you have some nice quality-of-life updates like improved notifications in game menus. However, on the other hand, this release lacks the added story content of Persona 3 FES, and it lacks the second playable protagonist of Persona 3 Portable, so this cannot even be considered a definitive version of the game.

I suppose I can technically say that Persona 3 Reload is the best version of a truly outstanding JRPG. But it comes with so many compromises, and the improvements here are so underwhelming, that I can’t recommend players to buy the upgrade if they already have Persona 3 Portable on Nintendo Switch, especially since Atlus has refused to give players any sort of upgrade path, and particularly because this game is selling at a full $60 on Nintendo Switch. If you’ve never played Persona 3 before, I do think it’s worth that price, but if you have played it already, that money is better-spent on something else.

tl;dr – Persona 3 Reload on Nintendo Switch 2 is a remake of the classic Monster-Collecting JRPG, but there’s no upgrade path here, and for a full-priced release this is a disappointingly lackluster remake, even if it is probably the best version yet of a truly great game. If you have yet to play this game, I absolutely recommend it. But if you already own another version, I don’t think it’s going to be worth it for you to buy it again for this compromised remake.

Grade: B-

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I hope you enjoyed this latest Nintendo Switch 2 Difference Mini-Review, and found it to be helpful! Want to see all Nintendo Switch 2 Difference comparisons? Check out this page for links to every article where I’ve included these comparisons!

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